We are expecting the amendment to the Health Order in relation to the requirement that all students participating in school activities, including school sport, are not subject to vaccine mandates will come into effect in the coming days. 

Key points for schools and providers of school sport once this comes into effect:

• All students will be eligible to participate in school sport activities regardless of vaccination status. Standard eligibility criteria set by the organiser of events will still be in place. Students can not be asked for proof of vaccination status when participating for a school representative team.
• Students who are in a school-organised team, group or individual activity cannot be asked for a vaccine pass and must be treated by the activity organiser or venue operator as if they were vaccinated.
• There is no change to the vaccine requirements for staff and volunteers supporting any school activity involving children and young people – they must be vaccinated and may be asked by venue staff to provide evidence of their vaccination.
• Sport NZ and School Sport NZ recommends event organisers take a pragmatic approach to the introduction of this change – where it is possible to incorporate participants that may have been previously excluded due to the legislation in place at that time, you should.   Where this might present significant disruption to competitions we recommend proceeding with already selected teams or squads.
• Where a young person is representing any team other than a school representative team, MVPs may still be required within the current changes to the Health Order.
• Changes will apply to all venues, including council venues, that are used for school organised activities and require a Vaccine Pass. 
• Vaccine Pass requirements will no longer apply for those participating in school-related activities (curricular or extracurricular). Students will be ‘exempt’ from vaccine pass requirements and there will be no requirement for facilities to partition off space for these groups.
• For council venues that have chosen to not apply a Vaccine Pass setting or have chosen not to host EOTC activities, there is no change.
• A reminder that at Red, these activities will still be able to have up to 100 participants in a defined space, so long as the adult participants have a My Vaccine Pass.

We appreciate that there will be many more questions and specific scenarios that will need to be interpreted as we move forward. Be kind and show patience as we move through these challenges.

Sport NZ will update its School Sport specific guidance once the changes to the health order have come into effect. For reference this can be accessed here

Lastly, we would like to acknowledge all those people that have worked tirelessly in difficult circumstances to abide by the rules and guidelines of the CPF and ensure that as many Rangatahi as possible have remained physically active and participating in school sport. These have been hugely challenging times and without you, far less would have been able to go ahead over the last four months.

Good luck to the thousands of students taking part in school sport across the country this weekend and we look forward to welcoming back those that have not been able to participate recently!